Pages

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

My First Tremor

I felt my first tremor today.

It was just after 6.00pm and I was in the office looking at a clip on YouTube. Suddenly I felt the chair swaying. Then I felt dizzy and I thought I was falling sick due to the amount of gorging I did earlier in the day at an opening ceremony.

After a few seconds I could not take it any longer and asked my colleague if he felt the ground moving.

"The ground IS shaking," another colleague confirmed. It was then that I realised I had felt my first tremor after the numerous times that Peninsular Malaysia has felt tremors before and I didn't feel a thing.

The fire alarm did not ring nor any announcement made. Since it was already after working hours, we shut down the computer, grabbed our bags and headed downstairs. Whilst some of us went down 24 floors on foot, I took the lift.

When I reached the lobby, many were already gathered in front of the building and spilling out onto busy Jalan Sultan Ismail. Those in other highrise buildings surrounding my office also started coming down and assemblying outside.

One of my colleagues who had left for home text me that Indonesia was hit by an earthquake that measured 7.9 on the Richter scale. With a magnitude like that, no wonder we felt the tremors! But my heart went out to those who perished in the earthquake.

At about 6.50pm the building maintenance fellas announced that it was safe to return to the offices. And some of the workoholics went back to work.

Since traffic was like crazy, I headed to Aloha to chill out before heading back to my apartment, which by the way, is on the 17th Floor.